


Fellowship at Christmas

by monaboyd_archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Filming Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-17
Updated: 2006-01-17
Packaged: 2018-04-11 13:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4437584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monaboyd_archivist/pseuds/monaboyd_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Completely off-the-cuff and unbeta-ed (and untitled) Christmas fic for pippinmctaggart, who wanted Fellowship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fellowship at Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Shirasade: this story was originally archived at the Monaboyd.net Archive, which was closed in September 2014 due to software issues and a lack of new submissions for several years . To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in October 2014. I e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact me using the e-mail address on the Monaboyd.net Archive collection profile.
> 
> \--
> 
> Entirely my fault, and unedited, so be forewarned. (There is a reason I have a fabulous beta, after all.)

It was Montana, it was Christmas Eve, and it was snowy. Dom looked out the window for the seventeenth time, and saw only white. He sighed and sat back down on the floor near the fireplace. "Remind me why I came here, again?"

Viggo threw the last log onto the fire, looking incongruously warm in his flannel shirt and bare feet. “Because you couldn’t stomach another Hawaiian Christmas,” he replied matter-of-factly. Dom had never told him that.

Before he could find a suitable comeback, there came a loud thumping on the cabin door. Not so much a knocking sound, but rather as if someone were kicking it. And giggling.

His own mouth twitching, Viggo rose to answer the summons, and in stumbled Sean, with Elijah riding piggyback. Both were red-faced with laughter and cold. A badly-timed (or perhaps not) snowball followed them in, exploding on Elijah’s back as he slid to the ground.

“Hey!” shouted Elijah in mock outrage, shaking a fist at someone outside. “You surrendered, you bastards!”

A moment later Orlando appeared, covered in snow. “It wasn’t me,” he protested, the very picture of innocence as he held up his mostly-snow-free mittens as proof.

“Well, who was it, then?” Elijah shook himself like a dog to get rid of the wet and cold. He and Sean were slightly less snowy than Orlando, but they were all dripping with detonated snowballs and cheeriness. Dom looked on with little interest.

“That was me.” They all looked up to see Sean Bean in the doorway, grinning unrepentantly as he threw a casual arm around Orli’s shoulder. “To pay you back for the snow down my jacket.” He kicked the door closed behind him and faked a glare in Elijah’s direction.

“That was a good one,” agreed Astin, laughing as he kicked off his boots. “I can’t believe you did that.” He grinned at his teammate and conspirator.

“I _was_ pretty stealthy.” Elijah preened with mock pride. He looked over at Dom suddenly. “Hey, you should’ve joined us. The girls' team needed help,” he snorted, nodding at Orli and Bean, earning a matched set of two-fingered retorts.

“Yeah, you should’ve come out. Quit moping by the fire, would you?” Orlando prodded him with a wet boot, earning a dirty look.

“He’s been in Hawaii so long he’s gotten soft.” Astin nodded wisely. “Can’t take the cold anymore.”

“That’s pretty funny, from a California kid,” Dom shot back, not quite as cheerful or joking as the others.

“C’mon Dom, where’s your Christmas spirit?” Elijah plopped down next to him, taking the mug of hot cocoa Viggo offered.

“Left it in Hawaii,” he muttered, wishing everyone would stop looking at him for once.

Bean murmured something to Orlando that sounded an awful lot like “left it in Glasgow, more like” from where Dom was sitting. Orli nodded, looking troubled. “Hey, Viggo, you should send Dom out to bring in some more firewood. The cold will do him good.”

“You’re fucking insane.” Dom glared outright at his friend.

“You could use some exercise or something, Dom,” Astin agreed.

“Whatever you do, don’t go sledding.” John wandered in from the back rooms, wrapped tight in his bathrobe and flannel pajamas and shivering. His hair was still wet from his own excursion outside.

“Or rather, don’t go sledding with _me_ , don’t you mean?” Ian walked up behind him, looking serene in his thick woolen sweater and jeans. His own hair was quite dry.

“He’s out of his bloody mind,” John confided with a shudder, jerking a cold thumb at his friend. He looked back at Ian, scowling in mock reproach. “A man your age should _not_ be building snow jumps, and should _definitely_ not be challenging me to race over them.”

“You’ve lost your sense of fun, my dear boy.” Ian nudged past him and settled himself comfortably in a chair by the fire, ignoring John’s sputtering retort. He turned instead to Dom and gave him a searching look. “They’re right, you know. You _are_ looking a bit off. Why don’t you go fetch some logs so that an old man can warm his bones.” It wasn’t really a suggestion.

There was nothing for it. When Ian suggested something, it happened, and they all knew it. Dom sighed and got to his feet, dragging on boots and a coat while everyone else crowded around the warmth of the fire.

It was damned cold outside, and he really didn’t see how this was meant to help his disposition. He’d return just as irritable – and probably more, with the way his boots had sunk deep into the snow, coating his jeans in white nearly to his knees.

It wasn’t really fucking hard to figure out, now was it? Bean was right, damn him. They all knew it, that’s why they kept _looking_ at him like that. Poor Dom without his Billy. Poor Merry without his Pip, and all the rest of the Fellowship together and jolly. He didn’t think he could take another well-meaning glance.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to hop a plane back to Honolulu. _Glasgow_ , his mind prodded ruthlessly, but he ignored it. Billy was too busy with his damn play or band or whatever it was this time. If he was too busy for Dom, then Dom was too busy for him. Even if he wasn’t.

Dom sighed. Childish, yes, but this was _Christmas_ , and they always spent Christmas together. It wasn’t the same without Billy. It never was.

He trudged toward the shed, shivering and miserable in both body and spirit. The sun was going down, and the twilit sky and trees and snow would have been lovely, if he were in a better mood. Too bad that wasn’t going to happen.

The shed was ancient, and the light bulb made a slight humming sound when he tugged the cord that somehow failed to reassure him. All of the wood was stacked against the back wall, and Dom had only a moment to wonder how Viggo could possibly get through the winter on what was there, before the light went out suddenly. “Fuck.”

“Hello to you, too.”

Dom started as strong arms wrapped around him, and a familiar nose pressed coldly against the back of his neck, only to be replaced by warm lips a moment later.

“You didn’t really think I could stay away, did you?” The lips smiled against his skin.

The start of a grin spread across Dom’s face as he turned in Billy’s arms. “How – ?”

“I talked to Viggo this morning on the flight in. Do you know, no one flies from Glasgow to Montana?” Billy’s hands were working the zipper on Dom’s bulky jacket, slipping underneath to tickle him with cold through the cotton of his shirt as they tugged him close.

Dom blinked in the dark. “But – your play – ”

“Will survive without me.” Billy nuzzled his face against Dom’s neck, triggering a delicious shiver. “Now. I’m told you’ve lost your Christmas spirit? Why don’t we see if we can find it.” He licked suggestively at Dom’s earlobe.

“Billy, why – ” Dom was still struggling with the reality of Billy being there, although he was swiftly being wooed into forgetfulness by the clever fingers tracing his spine and sliding into his hair.

“Dom. It’s Christmas. We’re _always_ together at Christmas. Always will be. The rest…we’ll work on. Alright?” His hands paused and his lips stopped moving against Dom’s skin. Dom could feel him holding his breath.

“Alright.” He smiled a little as Billy let out a sigh of relief against his neck. “What about the others?”

“Oh, they knew. I’m surprised they didn’t give it away. Shoddy bunch of actors, the lot of them.”

He could feel Billy’s grin. “So…they’re not expecting me back anytime soon.”

“I think they’d be disappointed if you were.”

“It’d be a shame to disappoint them at Christmas time, now wouldn’t it?”

“Indeed it would. Dom?”

“Yes, Billy?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“Right.” The word was muffled as Billy’s hands cupped his face, and Billy’s mouth found his own, and Dom sunk into the kiss with a happy sigh, opening himself up to the slightly-chapped warmth of Billy’s lips and the slide of Billy’s tongue against his own as it delved in, searching the dark corners of his mouth and finding what he was looking for.

When they separated, Dom let his forehead rest against his mate’s, nuzzling Billy’s nose, and dropping kisses at the corners of his mouth. “Merry Christmas, Billy.”

“Does this mean you’ve found your Christmas spirit?” He could feel his mate’s teasing pout.

“Possibly,” he conceded. “But it doesn’t hurt to keep looking.”

“That’s what I was hoping to hear.”

And they kissed again, and this time, they didn’t stop.

***

“You think we should be worried? It’s been dark for awhile.” John looked sleepily concerned, his hair dry and his head nodding in the warmth of the fire (thanks to the very large stack of firewood Viggo had cleverly stashed under his bed that morning).

“They won’t be back before breakfast,” snorted Bean.

“ _Second_ breakfast,” Astin corrected him wisely.

“It does get pretty cold in that shed, though.” Viggo looked thoughtful.

“I wouldn’t worry about that.” Bean shot Viggo a pointed look, and to their surprise, Viggo blushed.

“Never mind,” he muttered.

And they didn’t.


End file.
